Munda Trail

MUNDA TRAIL: The New Georgia Campaign, JuneAugust 1943 by Eric Hammel + Munda Trail is the dramatic, harrowing story of green American soldiers encountering for the first time impenetrable swamps, solid rain forests, invisible coconut log pillboxes, tenacious snipers tied into trees, torrential tropical rains, counterattack by enemy aircraft and naval guns, and the logistical nightmare of living and moving in endless mud. A carefully planned offensive quickly degenerates into isolated small-unit actions as the terrain breaks unit cohesion and leads inexperienced soldiers into deadly ambushes. As physical and psychological strains mount, Army doctors begin to define a new disease nearing epidemic proportionscombat fatigue. Men without injuries simply become useless for further fighting, the advance bogs down. Yet, over time, the scared American soldiers find their inner resolve and climb out of the psychological abyss, emerge steady and true, combat veterans at lastand victors. The New Georgia Campaign was, in Hammels words, a graphic study of the universal military truths attending the feeding of innocents to the ravenous dogs of war. Yet when it was over, there was no question in anyones mind that the tide had turned, that the forces moving through the Solomons would be American, and that they would move toward Japan.